


Self-Sabotage

by EmilyweepsforPilfrey



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Crack, Humor, M/M, Protect Q he is awkward, matchmaker Moneypenny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 18:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilyweepsforPilfrey/pseuds/EmilyweepsforPilfrey
Summary: For some reason, whenever he's alone with Bond, the most ridiculous things come out of Q's mouth.Or 'the one where Q accidentally invents a girlfriend'.





	Self-Sabotage

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is proudly brought to you by insomnia, the flu and late night ramblings.  
> It's loosely inspired by the tv show 'Miranda'. Basically, I thought "could Q be as awkward as Miranda?" and the answer is yes he can.

“Eve, I really messed things up with Bond,” Q sighed over a glass of something fruity and alcoholic. He sat across from Moneypenny in the corner booth of the local bar which was becoming more and more crowded by the minute.  

“It can’t be that bad,” she replied, taking a sip of her drink. 

Everyone with basic observational skills knew about Q’s crush on Bond and those who were a little more perceptive could see it was reciprocated. The problem was that the right circumstances to get them together just hadn’t happened yet.  

Q shook his head.  

“Uh uh. It’s really bad. He asked me out.”  

“Well that’s good,” Eve encouraged, trying to rein in her fangirlish enthusiasm for her friend.  

“I told him I had a girlfriend.”  

“And you don’t.” 

“And I don’t,” he confirmed, “I don’t even like girls.”  

“And you didn’t tell him that?”  

“Well with me telling him I had a girlfriend and turning him down, it really didn’t feel like the right time.”  

Q let his head fall into his hands and took a long sip from the straw. 

“And he was so sweet about it,” he went on, “he just apologised and said obviously he’d misread the situation and then he left.”  

“It’ll be okay, Q,” Eve consoled, reaching out to touch his arm, “We’ll get you another chance, get rid of your imaginary girlfriend and get you the man of your dreams.”  

“You make it sound so simple,” he sighed.  

She laughed. “It’s not _that_ hard. He is only human after all.”  

“That’s debatable,” Q mumbled.  

*** 

“Abort mission,” Q said, slightly out of breath as he slid into Moneypenny’s office. He’d been running, she observed. “Operation: straighten things out with Bond is not a go.”  

“No, no, no, you’re not chickening out,” she said. “You can do this. It’s simple. You just have to explain to Bond that you don’t have a girlfriend and then I’m sure he’ll have you swept off your feet and in his Aston Martin on the way to a posh restaurant for a date in no time.”  

“It is simple,” Q agreed, “You make it sound very very simple, but it’s not.”  

Eve remained quiet, feeling like there was more to the story.  

“I ran into Bond in the lift.”  

Eve’s heart sank as she put this information together with Q’s frantic and flustered state. But the lift was quick. He wouldn’t have had enough time to do too much damage.  

“I told him it’s our 7 year anniversary, my girlfriend and I.”  

Evidently, it was enough time to do plenty of damage.  

“He didn’t even prompt me or ask. He just stepped into the lift and said ‘Good morning, Q’ in that lovely suave voice he does – you know the one – and I just blurted it out.”  

Eve was trying desperately not to facepalm, but things just seemed to get worse and worse. 

“I told him we were going to Barbados, for our anniversary. I don’t even like flying! I’ll get terribly sick on the way over and with my complexion I’ll likely be burnt to a crisp after 5 minutes on a beach. Oh, this is going to be awful. Do you think I can get a refund?” 

“Q, breathe,” she replied calmly. “There’s no girlfriend, no anniversary and no beach holiday.”  

“Right,” he agreed, taking a deep breath to settle his frantic heart.  

*** 

“Well that was efficient,” Q noted.  

He watched Bond striding down the hotel hallway, straightening his suit jacket as he walked. Smug at a job well done. Another successful honeypot mission. Q was monitoring Bond from back at Q-branch and had just witnessed Bond performing cunnilingus on the mark – from no less than 7(!) different camera angles; oh the perks of running Q-branch – and was now watching the agent to make sure he made it out of there without any trouble. Not that Q was very familiar with women and their responses to this sort of thing, but he was rather impressed with Bond’s efficiency and apparent talent which had the mark screaming Bond’s name and spilling her secrets in a time that Q thought might be deserving of a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records and more importantly well before her husband could return. He was familiar with Bond’s reputation and the man certainly lived up to it, at least, he appeared to from what Q had seen. Job definitely well done. He’d be back on British soil in time for tea.  

Moreover, Q was proud that he had managed to get through their conversation without inventing a girlfriend or saying something else completely ridiculous. So far…  

“I'm good at reading people and giving them what they like, Q,” Bond replied in a voice so smooth that Q felt like it was caressing him.  

“Yes, my girlfriend quite likes it when I do… that.”  

Q felt like slapping himself in the face. James just chuckled.  

“Sounds like you’ve quite the delightful tongue, Q.”  

If Q hadn’t just reminded Bond about his (imaginary) girlfriend, he would’ve said that Bond was flirting with him.  

Q looked up to see Moneypenny standing in the doorway, trying to hold back her chuckles.  

“Don’t,” he warned.  

“I didn’t say anything,” she said, smirking.  

“I bragged about my imaginary sex life with my imaginary girlfriend to James Bond - _the_ James Bond: certified sex god.”  

“Honey, you need some better things to brag about.”  

He nodded in agreement.  

“Tell him the truth and I'll bet you give each other some reasons to brag.”  

*** 

The next time Q saw Bond, Bond was sitting at a table in the break room eating honey chicken - Q’s absolute favourite dish. Judging by the content smile Bond wore, he seemed to enjoy it too. There, they had something in common, Q told himself. It was a safe topic to talk about. Hi. Do you like honey chicken? I love honey chicken! We should get some honey chicken together sometime and/or have sex.  

Bond would reply that he’d already had his fill of honey chicken, but sex was on the table if Q was keen (on the table - now _that_ was an image Q did not need but would enjoy all the same). Then after a few rounds of rambunctious sex on the break room table, they would laze around in the afterglow eating leftover honey chicken that would somehow taste just as good as it did hot.  

So Q sat down at the table, ready to give James his opening line.  

“Is that honey chicken? Honey chicken is Amy’s favourite.”  

“Amy?” Bond asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.  

“Yes, Amy. My girlfriend. She loves it. It’s her favourite.”  

Even as he felt the words come pouring out, he wished he could take them back.  

“Your girlfriend has good taste,” Bond replied and if Q hadn’t been so flustered, he might’ve noticed that Bond wasn’t talking about the chicken.   

“She’s a model,” Q announced.  

Bond nodded politely.  

“Underwear model. Lingerie.”  

This garnered a raised eyebrow. Bond wouldn’t have picked Q to be the type to date a lingerie model.  

“She’s also a school teacher - librarian,” Q went on because there appeared to be no stopping him now.  

“Librarian by day, lingerie model by night,” Bond repeated, sounding infuriatingly calm about the whole thing, unlike Q. “She sounds like a dream come true.”  

It was at this point that Q managed to gain enough control over himself to realise this was swiftly snowballing out of control and he apparently had no control over the things that came out of his mouth. Before he had a chance to say another word, he stood up and walked out, marching himself straight up to Moneypenny’s office.  

“I brought up Amy again today,” he said as he dropped himself into a chair opposite Moneypenny’s desk.  

She looked up from her work.  

“Who?”  

“Amy, my girlfriend.”  

“Oh, sweetie, don’t give your imaginary girlfriend a name,” she said, wondering how her friend could be so smart, but so hopeless at the same time.  

Q felt a little insulted on behalf of Amy – it seemed rude to not give her a name – but he understood where Eve was coming from.  

“I told him she’s a librarian who models underwear.”  

“Well, I suppose you get points for making her sound like she’s just stepped out of a porno.”  

“Is that what heterosexual porn is like?” he queried, feeling as though they were getting off topic.  

“You just need to come clean,” she said, ignoring his question. “It won’t be weird if you explain the situation to him before it escalates any further. Then you can finally have your chance with him and once you’re together I’m sure you’ll forget all about this mess. ”  

“Right,” Q agreed, “I’ll just explain it to him and we can live happily ever after.”  

*** 

"Is that your girlfriend you’re texting? Should I be jealous?”  

Q jumped as Bond snuck up behind him. He hastily put his phone on the desk, screen face down, like he was hiding something he didn’t want Bond to see.  

“Oh no,” Q brushed off his concern, trying to appear cool about the whole thing. “I was just texting my kids.”  

“Kids,” Bond inquired dubiously.  

“Yes, kids. Three, four. Three now, four soon.”  

“I have to say, Quartermaster, you surprise me every time.”  

“You and me both, 007.”  

Why couldn't he stop saying these things? 

“So are you hoping for a boy or a girl?”  

“I’m sorry?” Q asked.  

“Your baby. You said four soon.”  

“Oh right, yes. Girl. Annie. That’s her name or will be once she’s born.”  

He really needed to stop spinning this web of lies.  

“Well, congratulations, Q.”  

Bond made to leave the room only to be stopped by a desperate Q calling him back.  

“Wait!”  

Bond turned on his heel, awaiting whatever else Q had to tell him.  

This was it. All Q had to do was tell Bond none of this was true. The words didn’t quite come out that way.  

“Alfred. He’s my youngest, until Annie arrives at least. He likes boats. Maybe you’d like to meet him?”  

*** 

“I told him I’ve got kids.”  

“No!” Eve complained as the two of them walked through the park to get some fresh air. Sometimes Q made it so hard to root for him.  

“Kids. Plural. Three and another on the way. Annie, Alfred, Alice and Linux.”  

“Well, you’ve certainly been busy.”  

“I suggested that he meet them.”  

“Well, that’ll be difficult.”  

“I invited him to Alice’s dance recital and suggested he teach Linux to drive.”  

“If it makes you feel any better I don’t think anyone, least of all Bond, thinks you look old enough to have a son that’s old enough to drive. Plus, with the way you complain about how Bond treats cars, I doubt he’d seriously believe that you’d want him to teach your child to drive.”  

“Great,” Q pouted, “Now he’ll think I’m making this all up.”  

“But you are making it up.”  

 “Yes, but now he’ll think I’m crazy.”  

“I think that ship’s already sailed," Eve accused mockingly. "Just find a way to get rid of the girlfriend and the kids and tell him how you feel.”  

“Oh, if it were only that simple.”  

“It is.”  

*** 

“007, a word if I may.”  

Bond followed Q into his office, waiting patiently as Q shut the door and walked around behind his desk.  

“I just wanted to say, that girlfriend I told you about –“  

“Amy.”  

“Yes, Amy. Look-“  

“The librarian who models lingerie in her free time.”  

“Yes, that’s the one. Look, I just wanted to say, you don’t need to worry about her. She’s...“  

*** 

“I told him she’s dead,” Q announced to Eve over lunch.  

“I’m sorry, you what?”  

“I told him he doesn’t have to worry about her, the girlfriend, she’s not in the picture and she’s dead.”  

“Oh honey, that’s not quite what I had in mind when I told you to get rid of your girlfriend.”  

“I know! I couldn’t help it. I tried to come clean and the next thing I knew I’d killed her off.”  

Eve shook her head at him as she spooned a mouthful of rice into her mouth.  

"So how did she go?" Eve asked, knowing that Q's wild imagination would've come up with a story and probably shared it with Bond. "How was she offed?" 

"Golfing accident."  

"You've got to watch out for those golf clubs."  

"No. Golf ball."  

"Remind me to never go golfing with you."  

"Duly noted."  

"But maybe this is your way in," Eve suggested. "I know he appreciates a good obscure way to kill someone. You two can bond – no pun intended – over 101 strange ways to off someone."  

"No," Q disagreed. "There's no coming back from this. I've done too much damage."  

Eve gave him a look of pity. But it was so hard to feel bad for him when he was doing this to himself.  

“On the plus side," Q said brightly,  "at least I can tell my parents I tried the whole girlfriend thing next time they bring it up.”  

“And you hated it so much you killed her.”  

“I think my mind’s finally cracked. It’s the only explanation. This is not normal behaviour.”  

“Look, you killed off your imaginary girlfriend, it happens to us all,” Eve said chuckling.  

Q laughed for a moment before his face fell.  

“It gets worse.”  

“Oh, I didn’t think that was possible,” she complained.  

“I invited him to her funeral. As my date.”  

Eve couldn’t contain it anymore. She burst out laughing.  

“This has to be the worst case of self-sabotage I’ve ever seen.”  

Q pouted. “I’ll never have another boyfriend ever again. I’ll be stuck with my dead imaginary girlfriend for the rest of my life.”  

“Oh, Q, don’t give up hope yet.”  

*** 

 Q marched into Eve’s office the next morning.  

“I did it. I told him I don’t have a girlfriend.”  

Eve cheered.  

“I’ll break out the champagne.”  

“Don’t be so hasty,” he cautioned.  

“Oh no. What is it now? Don’t tell me.”  

“I told him I have a wife.”  

Eve let her head fall to the desk.  

*** 

“So you still haven’t told me why you asked me here,” Q said to Eve.  

She’d asked him to meet her at this new bar. It was a little fancier than their usual watering hole and didn’t really seem to be their style. Eve was only half paying attention to him, eyes scanning the room. Her face lit up when she spotted who she was looking for. Q, eyes downtrodden as he sulkily amused himself with his napkin, didn’t notice. He also didn’t notice a third person join their table, not until Eve cleared her throat.  

Q’s head shot up to see Eve vacating her seat and standing next to none other than James Bond.  

“Right,” Even began, talking to James. “This is Q. He’s single, gay and not very good with words.”  

She turned to Q. “Does that cover everything?”  

“And very interested," Q said anxiously with a smile.  

“And very interested,” she added.  

Eve bid them goodbye before leaving the two of them alone, mouthing a ‘don’t mess it up’ at Q as she left. Finally! A chance for redemption. What Q had been trying to do for weeks, Eve had done in less than 30 seconds. He was impressed.  

“Can I buy you a drink," James asked, "or would that make your girlfriend terribly jealous? Or is it wife now?”  

“Look, about that, I don’t know why I said it," Q admitted. "It kind of just came out.”  

“Oh, I know. I never believed a word of it for a second.”  

Q didn't know whether to be relieved or mortified. He settled for both.  

“You must think I’m quite strange.”  

“Well, I have been given reason to believe that."  

Bond chuckled and Q couldn't help but smile.  

“And yet you’re still here.”  

“And yet I’m still here.” 


End file.
